A British horror set in a self-storage facility from actor and film-maker Noel Clarke was the poorest performing movie at the US box office last year with a paltry £44 ($72) haul. A spokesperson for the production said the £44 figure was so low because Storage 24 was released on only one screen for one day in the US due to the terms of a TV deal.

Storage 24 was shot on a reportedly tiny budget of around £1.6m and was Clarke's first film to appear in American cinemas following his cameo appearance in Star Trek film Into Darkness last year. The former Doctor Who star is well known to British audiences for his work behind the camera, and in front of it, on the popular 2006 urban drama Kidulthood and its 2008 sequel Adulthood.

Clarke played the lead role and co-wrote the screenplay for Storage 24, which centres on a couple who find themselves trapped in a London storage facility inhabited by a menacing extraterrestrial. Its creator came up with the idea after visiting a similar facility (presumably minus the alien interloper).

He told Movieweb last year: "[I thought] wouldn't it be crazy if there was a serial killer that was killing people in one of these places? One day I woke up and I was like, 'Don't be ridiculous. A serial killer is ridiculous. An alien would be better.'"

Storage 24, which was directed by Johannes Roberts, did slightly better in the UK. The film made £225,000 in June 2012, according to Box Office Mojo. The Guardian's Jeremy Clarke handed the film a four-star review upon its British debut two years ago. "An impressive if unoriginal monster is upstaged by – spoiler alert! – a cuddly toy dog with fireworks attached," he revealed. "The whole thing proves unexpectedly entertaining."

• This article was amended on Friday 10 January 2014. The original piece failed to mention Storage 24's distribution pattern in the US, which plays into its box office take. This has been amended.